Just Routine
by Alekto
Summary: A cop makes a routine traffic stop on a speeding black Chevy Impala and for everyone involved things go steeply downhill from there. Outsider POV. The first few chapters are written, but it's still very much a WIP.
1. Chapter 1

**Just Routine**

By Alekto

Disclaimer: Oddly enough, I don't own Supernatural – however much I'd like to.

Rating: T (language and violence)

Summary: A cop makes a routine traffic stop on a speeding black Chevy Impala and for everyone involved things go steeply downhill from there. Outsider POV.

A/N: Please bear in mind that I know virtually nothing about real US police procedures or the practice of medicine, and while I've driven through the Mid-West a couple of times, I've never actually been to South Dakota. As far as I know there is no Henderson or Henderson County in SD. Also I'm English which I hope might explain some of the spelling!

**Part 1**

It was when I was on my way home after finishing up a long shift when the big black car sped past me. Any idiot can tell you that passing a cop car at a speed way beyond the posted limit isn't the smartest thing to do, but it was a Friday night so I figured it was nothing more than some idiot bucking for a DUI. Then I just had to go and prove that I was just as much of an idiot as them by turning on lights and siren and going after them, no matter that I was off duty. Goddamned sense of duty, however much I figured I'd finally gotten rid of it, it snuck up and got me – every single goddamned time.

Not half an hour earlier I'd been leaning back in the squad car watching the slow trickle of rain dripping down the windshield, taking a sip of the long since tepid coffee I'd been nursing for the past hour. The shiny, new mug that I'd mail-ordered and paid ten bucks for the week before had been advertised by the manufacturers as keeping a beverage warm for hours. Turned out they'd lied.

Outside of the warmth of the car, the rain slicked road was quiet, the occasional vehicle going by driven by a local who was only too aware of my presence and who for the most part drove accordingly. When the I-90 had gone through fifty miles to the south, Henderson County had started to lose people to other towns along the Interstate. In a generation Henderson itself had gone from a population of more than fifteen thousand people to probably no more than half that.

Across the county more and more businesses were failing every year and too many folks who for whatever reason couldn't get out had taken to drowning their sorrows when they could. Anyone could tell you that Henderson's only growth industry was drink related offences, which was why every Friday and Saturday evening I ended up sitting in the car, waiting for the DUIs to roll by. As usual, apart from a couple of friendly warnings, the evening had been uneventful. "Lincoln Three Seven to control. Annie, I'm gonna call it a night. Log me out at, uh…" I looked down to check the time, "23:54, okay?"

"Sure Cole," she replied, her harshly nasal words barely audible over the background crackle, and not for the first time I wondered if the county was ever going to spring for new radios. "See you Monday."

_See you Monday…_ Three words: the promise of a dull, quiet weekend after a dull, quiet week carrying with them the tiniest hint of longing in the voice of a woman who was still single and desperately didn't want to be - but that was one train of thought I wasn't lingering on. Without answering I tossed the radio handset back onto the passenger side seat, tipped out the dregs of coffee and figured that one of these days I'd have to get out of Henderson too. After all, it wasn't like I had anything holding me here. Not any more.

Job finished for the evening, I turned the ignition and after a couple of abortive splutters the engine caught and I pulled out onto the road, heading for the trailer that for the past couple of years had been masquerading as home.

And it was barely a mile down that very same road that the big black car blazed past me as if I was standing still and the hounds of Hell were on its tail. So I did what duty demanded and I took up the pursuit. Goddamn sense of duty. It got me every time.

Running the black car, an old Chevy, down didn't take long. One of the few things the county did right by the Sheriff's Office was to invest in a handful of decent cars, and when you factor in driving high speed at night, knowing the road can make one hell of a difference. So I took advantage of a bend I knew was coming up and managed to pull in front of the black car, slowing it to a halt in the weed encrusted parking lot of what had once been a truck stop. Fan tails of water splashed up as the Chevy's tyres cut through the rain that had pooled in hollows of the uneven surface before it finally stopped in front of the crumbling remains of a low wall. The place had been built post-War, a cluster of cinderblock buildings flanked by spindly shade trees; a nearby sagging billboard still held the fading advertisement for a car now twenty years out of date.

The big black car I'd pulled over was certainly a classic of its type - an old Chevy Impala carrying Kansas plates. Assuming someone hadn't just bought the car from an out-of-state seller, I could pretty much conclude that the driver wasn't local which got me to wondering what in hell he had been doing tearing down a road outside of Podunk, South Dakota. Then routine took over and I picked up the radio to call it in. "Lincoln Three Seven to control. I need a DMV check on a black Chevy Impala'65 or maybe '67, Kansas plates, KAZ 2Y5." I hit the receive button, waiting for Annie to reply in her usual less than dulcet tones but heard only static. "Lincoln Three Seven to control. Do you read?" More static. Great. Perfect.

I noted the make and plate in my notebook then got out of the car, automatically adjusting the holster on the belt around my waist. In all the years I'd been in Henderson I'd never had cause to draw that gun, but old habits died hard and given there looked to be two people in the Chevy while I had no back up and the radio was down, I figured better too cautious than not cautious enough.

Walking cautiously up to the car I noticed deep gouges in the otherwise immaculate if mud-spattered paintwork. The driver's side window that I thought had been rolled down I could now see had been broken, and recently if the shards of glass clinging around the frame were anything to go by. I glanced again at the gouges, checking for rust and not finding any, so likely recent too and scenarios each less likely than the last ran through my mind as to what might have caused them. One thing I was damned sure about: it didn't look like any collision damage I'd ever seen, and the only thing that sprang to mind was it looked like a car I'd seen once during a visit to Yellowstone that had been clawed by a grizzly. One problem: last time I checked there were no bears around Henderson and the nearest park with a bear population was way over in the next state.

Thoughts of bears were carefully sidelined as I walked up to the driver's side and got my first look at the driver. The twenty-something kid behind the wheel smiled up at me with that fake friendly smile that people seem to keep for stops by traffic cops. "What's the problem officer?"

I didn't bother smiling back. From the look in his eyes he'd been this route before and both of us knew the script. "Licence and registration please," I said. He handed them over to me like they'd been easily at hand and I guessed he'd probably gotten them out as I'd been walking up to him. Then it occurred to me that there was no obvious smell of alcohol in the car like I'd expected, but I knew that meant nothing: a lot of spirits don't smell on the breath anywhere near as bad as beer. I directed my flashlight down and checked the licence: Dean Johnson, DOB 6/26/79, address in Wichita.

The picture was accurate if unflattering: the expression caught by the photographer a too knowing smirk pretending to be a smile. "Step out of the car, please, Mr. Johnson," I asked.

"Is this really necessary, Officer?" The smile was back again but slightly different this time: an easy, cajoling good ol' boy smile that as good as said 'aw, shucks Officer, I was only a little bit over the limit but I'm real sorry about it so how about you let it go with a warning'.

It was a line I'd heard time and again and truth be told the smile looked sincere, and it was late, and I was tired. I was almost sold on it, about to let him get away with a friendly warning when I looked again at his eyes: they were flat and calculating and a whole world away from belonging to a 'good ol' boy'. There was a prickling on the back of my neck as years of hard learned cop instincts started screaming a warning like I hadn't heard since I'd worked in LA back during the riots, a warning that this Dean Johnson was trouble and there was no way I should let him just go on his way. And God help me, I listened to them.

I wish like Hell I hadn't.

I wish like Hell I'd just let them go with a warning.

TBC…


	2. Chapter 2

**Part 2**

"Mr. Johnson, please step out of the vehicle and turn around and put your hands on the roof."

I backed off a few feet, kept my hand close to my gun and waited. The only sound was the rain slowly spattering on my hat, on the hood of the Chevy, into the puddles on the asphalt. I wondered if I was imagining what I saw in his eyes; perhaps I was, but it was late and I was tired and even if I couldn't put it in words, I knew there was something off about this guy. I didn't want to take any chances. His smile was still there, easy, reassuring, trying so hard to convince me I was mistaken, that he was just heading on his way, no trouble to anyone. Hell, maybe he was. Maybe I was just being paranoid, but with the radio not working which made the chances of getting back-up less than zero, I decided I'd stick with paranoid.

Johnson opened the car door and slowly stepped out then turned to face it as I had ordered. Rain started spotting on his scuffed leather jacket. I watched him all the while, wary that he might try something. The way he moved set off more warning bells: he didn't have the overly careful moves of someone who had drunk too much, far from it but there was a sort of unease, anxiety almost, about him at odds with his overly casual expression and the combination didn't fit at all. His every move was deliberate and I saw how his gaze wandered between following my every move with the same wariness that I was giving him and scanning the surrounding darkness.

Then I recalled Johnson had a passenger and knowing how easily people could get belligerent I glanced into the car, checking – hoping - he was going to oblige and stay put. I pegged the passenger as younger and even sitting down, guessed he probably had a couple of inches on Johnson's six feet: a lanky, shaggy haired college kid who as he met my eyes grinned up at me with a bland smile.

Still being cautious I kept one hand on my gun and started to pat him down. He was clean. From within the car I heard his passenger speak, his words pitched for Johnson's ears, but my hearing's always been good. "We don't have time for this, Dean." The words were soft, urgent.

Despite wondering what they could be in such an all fired hurry about this time of night, I decided to carry on with the routine. I was about to start in with the standard sobriety test when I saw Johnson tense, his eyes apparently fixed on something beyond the pool of light from the two cars' headlamps, then those same lights on both cars started to flicker as if shorting out. Both of them. At exactly the same time. I pulled out my flashlight again and thumbed it on. A moment later I heard his low muttered, heartfelt, "crap," followed by a quiet if apparently sincere, "sorry about this," and a blow came out of nowhere and caught me across the side of the head.

I went down. It wasn't dramatic: I didn't see stars or tweety birds. For a moment Johnson, the truck stop, everything, vanished in a too bright blur, then sight returned only for the world to have tilted and slid sideways and for a few seconds I was really stuck trying to work out up from down. My jaw ached. The feel of rough concrete underneath my palms gave me the clue I'd been looking for but still it took me a few seconds to figure out how to regain the footing I couldn't altogether remember losing. I heard Johnson shouting, and while I couldn't focus enough to make out his words, there was no mistaking the urgency in them. Another voice shouted back in reply – Johnson's passenger, I guessed.

Wrenching my blurred vision back into focus I groped for the flashlight I'd dropped when I fell and as I did had a clear line of sight from where I was down on the pavement into the guys' car - and at the shotgun I hadn't been able to see that was half hidden under the seat. Given the way the evening had been shaping up, I admit it came as no surprise when I saw Johnson's passenger quickly reaching for it and tossing it through the open door to him.

The adrenaline jolt I'd gotten from seeing the shotgun worked wonders clearing my head and between scrambling to my feet I reached to haul my gun from its holster, all the time knowing beyond any doubt that they had the drop on me and whatever I did just wasn't going to be quick enough. That sort of certainty that you're going to die does odd things to you: it focuses the mind, lends you a sort of clarity where somehow you know every single thing that's ever happened in your life is nothing more than one inevitability leading to another, and all leading to this single, inescapable moment. It was a feeling I recognised from long ago back when I worked in LA, looking down a gun barrel, seeing a finger tightening on a trigger, hearing the too loud click of a hammer that had come down on an empty chamber and knowing that by some quirk of fate I was still alive.

Truth told, that was what got me out of LA. I figured I'd used up any 'get out of jail free' luck I had owing back then when that gang kid had caught me cold, but it seemed fate, or whatever, disagreed. And when the dust from the riots had died down, I quit the LAPD. After all that had happened I headed home for Henderson. I'd had my fill of the 'big city' and was only to glad of the boredom and routine of a small town sheriff's department.

But then I had to reconsider thoughts of imminent death as I heard the only too recognisable sound of shotguns blasts going off over my head, one after another, as quickly as he could cycle the pump action. That kind of proficiency was ample proof that if Johnson had wanted me dead, I would have been. He had shot clear over my head and between thanking God that I was still breathing, I wondered what game he was playing and perhaps more to the point, what the Hell it was that he was shooting at.

The sudden shriek of tearing metal coming from the far side of the squad car pulled my attention from Johnson, and in the rapidly failing light of the cars' headlamps I could just about make out a dark, heavy-set figure lurking behind the bulk of my car. Before I could do anything a hand grabbed the shoulder of my jacket and dragged me to my feet as if I weighed far less than the two-hundred plus pounds I knew I tipped the scale at these days.

"Sam, grab what you can! Get to the building!" Johnson yelled as he fired one-handed at the dark figure. But firing a shotgun with just one hand does nothing for the aim and I winced as a good part of the buckshot scatter from the shotgun chewed into the side of my car. From the corner of an eye I saw the college boy bail from the Chevy carrying a canvas duffel bag and start for the nearest building with an uneven, stumbling run, heavily favouring one leg. Then Johnson looked at me, "You, follow Sam!" he ordered, and the sheer authority in his tone was so unmistakeable that I caught myself taking a couple of steps to comply before even thinking what I was doing.

Then I stopped, turned back to Johnson to ask him what was going on. I managed to get out little more than a gasped, "what the fu-" before he turned and fired again at a second dark figure I hadn't spotted moving half hidden by the sagging billboard that looked like it was trying to out flank us and maybe go after Sam. The shotgun blast blew a hole out of the edge of the billboard and on the next shot, clicked empty.

"Goddamnit, run!" he growled at me with an irritated, sidelong glance, backing away toward the same building Sam had headed for. All the time he was thumbing shell after shell into the shotgun, reloading on the move with the kind of unhurried efficiency that only ever came from long practice.

I'll admit it. I ran. There was a part of me convinced that this Dean Johnson was nothing more than a trigger-happy lunatic shooting up my car, not to mention taking pot shots at whatever unknown guys were lurking around out there, and for that sort of off the wall craziness it was my job to arrest him and drag his ass to jail. I didn't. Call it instinct; call it paranoia; call it whatever the Hell you will but I knew there was something seriously _off_ about everything from the time I pulled over the Impala.

And besides, for all the times he'd fired, I hadn't heard a single cry that might have meant someone was down and that confused me. The way Johnson handled that shotgun, he knew how to use it so it made no sense at all that he'd missed – unless he was aiming wide, maybe just trying to put a scare into them. I knew that there were people out there: I'd seen the dark shapes of the guys out there moving in on us, almost as if they were stalking us. If Johnson was aiming to scare them, it sure as Hell wasn't working but truth to tell in that instant I was suddenly more worried about us than them. I knew it made no sense – they hadn't fired on us – hadn't even threatened us that I had seen – but I still couldn't escape the feeling that there was something very, very bad going on, that I was right in the middle of it. And that I hadn't a clue what it was.

Ahead of me Sam had reached one of the buildings, its aging cinderblock walls mottled white and grey with peeling paint - it had been a mini-mart once if I remembered right - and he was struggling with the boards nailed over the door. I went to help him while behind us I could hear the bark of the shotgun again and again as Johnson fired. The lights from the cars' headlamps dimmed, managed one last convulsive flicker and then failed altogether, first the squad car, then seconds later, Johnson's Chevy. My flashlight started to flicker and fade, and just as Sam and I managed to wrench lose a couple more of the boards blocking the doorway it failed altogether plunging everything into darkness.

TBC…


	3. Chapter 3

**Part 3**

To say I was scared didn't even come close. When the lights went out I think I cried out, overtaken by that kind of unthinking fear of the dark that I thought I'd grown out of when I got over being scared of monsters in closets or under the bed. "Get it together, Cole!" I muttered under my breath as my eyes tried to adjust to the dark. For an instant I saw the truck stop illuminated by a staccato flash of light from the muzzle flash of the shotgun and then the dark settled around us again.

While I had been on the edge of panicking, Sam had only too obviously been able to keep it together where I had not. Only seconds after the muzzle flash had faded away, I heard him shout, "Cover your eyes!" and scant seconds later the desolate, rain blurred truck stop was illuminated with the harsh, white glow of an emergency flare. In that blaze of light I glimpsed Johnson backing towards us, covering us with his shotgun. Beyond him, circling like a pack of wolves jockeying for position, I saw about a half dozen men: leather clad biker types, moving with a odd, hunched lope like B-movie cavemen or something. They flinched away from the flare, ducking faces behind the cover of their arms or turning away, but as I watched them some odd trick of the light made their eyes reflect green, like those of an animal caught in a headlamp's beam.

Beside me I heard Sam tugging at another of the boards blocking the door. I went to help and between us we levered off the last board blocking the doorway and shouldered the door open. Without waiting, Sam grabbed my jacket and shoved me inside the building.

"Dean," he called, his voice loud enough to carry through the rain, and even though he said nothing more than that I saw Johnson start to back up to the doorway without even a sideward glance to check we'd gotten it open.

Only a few seconds later he was next to us, his back braced against the doorway, loading more shells into the once again emptied shotgun. "Hate to break this to you Sammy," Johnson's voice was easy, almost conversational, "but that…uh…" a wary glance in my direction, "… new stuff we loaded the cartridges with… it's not working out like we hoped."

"Crap!" Sam muttered. "Uh… okay. Right…" I saw worry cross the college boy's face and watched as he hurriedly looked around, his intent gaze taking in what little was left of the fittings of the old mini-mart. There wasn't much. Twenty years of opportunistic scavenging had all but cleared the place out, but Sam's gaze settled on an old chiller cabinet and he headed over to it. "Give me a hand with this!" he ordered, setting himself to start dragging it. "We need to block the door."

By that point I decided I'd had just about all I could take of being ordered around. "Hey! Who are those guys out there?" From what I'd seen, my best guess would have been a biker gang except for the small but relevant detail that I hadn't heard or seen any bikes. "And for that matter, what the Hell is going on?"

If Sam was going to make any reply I didn't hear it as Johnson's terse shout from the doorway interrupted him before he could open his mouth to speak. "We can Q&A later. For right now, just do what he says." He brought the shotgun up and fired twice rapidly at dark shapes moving in the darkness beyond the light of the smoking flare, then turned and glared at me. "Move it!"

I was about to protest further when a massive figure, nothing more than a featureless shadow silhouetted against the flare for all that I could make out, lunged towards Johnson who was still holding his position in the doorway.

"Dean!" yelled Sam in frantic warning, but it was too late.

A dark, leather gloved hand latched on to Johnson's jacket. It pulled, dragging him off balance with impressive strength then all but threw him outside towards where a couple of other bikers – or whoever – were waiting.

I might not have had any clear idea what was going on, but I knew trouble when I saw it and Johnson was up to his neck in it. If I had to guess, these two had apparently managed to do something to seriously piss these guys off – maybe something to do with how come they didn't have their bikes - and they were looking to collect. With that thought, suddenly it all clicked into place: why he had been speeding when I had pulled him over; the injured leg that Sam was hobbling about on; and the broken window on the Chevy. There had been some kind of altercation which they'd been running from when I pulled them over, unwittingly giving the gang time to catch up. I still couldn't work out where the gouges on the car or the failing lights fitted in yet, but I knew there was an explanation for that somewhere.

Now that I'd gotten that all straight in my head, I knew I had to act before the gang started to take Johnson apart so for the first time in years I pulled my gun. "Henderson County Sheriff's Department!" I called out, following the book, identifying myself. "Put any weapons you have down on the ground and back away now!"

My demand didn't get the reaction I'd hoped for. All they did was pause and look at me with bored disinterest. Johnson's reaction was no better: from the disbelieving look on his face you'd have thought I'd ordered them all to attend a macramé evening.

Then the bikers' expressions of disinterest shifted: became sly, predatory. The one nearest to me smiled, an expression that was all teeth and no humour, and started towards me. From the corner of my eye I saw Johnson scramble to his feet and move back to where I was, positioning himself to cover my flank and all the while getting space between him and the other two. He pumped the shotgun, expelling a used cartridge, loading a fresh one and snugged the gun to his shoulder. The others split up, moving apart, surrounding us. The biker moving in on me continued regardless as if nothing had changed.

"Stop right there!" I ordered bringing the gun to bear on him.

He carried on walking, his pace slow and casual and deliberate, his eyes never moving from me. He carried no weapons that I could see but there was something I couldn't describe in his unblinking gaze that scared me more than if he'd been carrying a machine gun.

"Stop or I shoot!" _Please, God, make him stop._ He didn't. I could hear the tremor in my voice, see the tremble of the gun in my outstretched hand. I thumbed the hammer back, more for effect than anything else. I didn't want to shoot: I hadn't fired my gun on the job since leaving LA nearly fifteen years ago.

He was about ten feet away when I heard a gun go off, saw the bullet impact centre chest, saw him stagger backward and go down, but it wasn't my gun that had fired. The shot had come from behind me, from near the building. Sam.

Seizing the moment, Johnson grabbed my shoulder and started backing away. "Inside, now!" he ordered but I couldn't take my eyes off the body in front of me, the guy that Sam had shot because I couldn't. A firm shove pulled me back to the present and with Johnson covering us we pulled back.

I stumbled back into the mini-mart, shaking from reaction. Sam and Johnson flat out ignored me as between them they hauled the chiller cabinet to block the doorway. The screech of its rusted solid casters as they scored deep gouges in the concrete floor cut through the dank air.

By the time I got back inside I was shaky on my feet and gulping for breath like I'd just run a marathon: a normal reaction, I guessed, from what I nearly did. Then a surge of guilt at my own selfishness reminded me that I was a cop and, whatever my own worries, there were two civilians to look after. I glanced over at them, particularly at Sam to see how they were coping. What I saw shook me almost as much as what had happened with the guys outside. Neither of them was freaking out like I would have expected, like most people would have been after what had happened; not even the college kid who I was beginning to decide was nothing of the sort. It wasn't that they were casual or relaxed about it all; far from it. What I saw instead on both of them was the same calm, utterly self-confident and disciplined demeanour.

That really threw me. It was something I'd only ever seen before on the faces of SWAT veterans and suddenly, seeing it on these two twenty-something kids, I felt truly out of my depth.

It was a feeling that didn't improve one little bit when, peering over the cabinet, I saw the biker guy that Sam had shot in the chest stand up, brush himself down and as if nothing were wrong, walk back into the darkness.

TBC…


End file.
